DICTATORSHIP

After returning home from Cabela's and checking on Facebook and the blog, I could not believe what was happening. Within a short amount of time nearly 400,000 people viewed the post on the Saturdays events, 940 had commented (99.9% in support for my family), and over 6100 shares (who knows how many viewed it from there). The Feds must have got the message also.

On"Sunday" (within 24 hours) Cabela's called me and said that they were contacted by the FBI and that I was free to buy a gun. According to the FBI fact sheet, back ground checks with a Delay status are assigned to a agent and are not processed on weekends or holidays.

U.S. officials will visit Israel to attend an international homeland security conference.

They will join police chiefs and homeland security officials from around the world for “Israel HLS 2014,” the third International Conference for Homeland Security, from Nov. 9 to 12 in Tel Aviv.

The participants from the United States include Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant; Balram Bheodari, the deputy general manager of Hartfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport; Dr. Robert Griffin, deputy under secretary for science and Technology at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; and Timothy Manning, the deputy administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Webmaster's Commentary:

"Treat the people like they are Palestinians and all will be well! Let's start the party!" -- Nodding Yahoo

House Speaker John A. Boehner said President Obama will “poison” chances for cooperation with Congress if he moves unilaterally to claim powers to grant legal status to illegal immigrants.

“He’s going to burn himself if he continues to go down this path,” Mr. Boehner said.

Newly elected to his House seat and likely to be returned at speaker in the next Congress, Mr. Boehner said he would like to tackle immigration in Congress but wouldn’t commit to holding a vote, saying he wanted to talk with his fellow House Republicans first.

SEE ALSO: White House predicts GOP might ‘change their tune’ after landslide victory

He did, however, say the House will vote to repeal Obamacare and will also likely pass a bunch of bills to carve out some of the most contentious parts such as a tax on medical devices or the individual mandate.

“We need to put them on the president’s desk and let him choose,” the speaker said.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Obama will veto. For the next two years he doesn't care what the public thinks about him.

On a number of occasions, I have documented in relative detail how ISIS, ISIL, Al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, and the FSA are not only small divisions of the same fighting force but also how they are entirely controlled by NATO and Western intelligence agencies. Indeed, the documentation of these relationships is so plentiful as to preclude any attempt to collect even a substantial portion of it in one place. Yet, only in the bits of dribble provided by mainstream media outlets is there the pretense that the above-listed terrorist organizations are anything but NATO’s and the CIA’s Arab legion.

This Tuesday, protesters assembled at various sites across the world for a demonstration called “The Million Mask March.” The protests were not centered on one specific issue or event, but served as an outlet for people to voice their frustrations with the different institutions that control their lives.

Protests hit major cities worldwide, with some of the largest in London and Washington DC. During the protests in Washington DC, a group of masked Anonymous protesters stormed the FBI headquarters to face a group of terrified police officers.

At first, the police patrolling the building were caught off guard, and one or two officers came face to face with legions of angry protesters. One officer in the video is seen shaking in fear as he threatens the protesters with violence and arrest.

Almost two years later, the families of special forces soldiers sent to die in what was virtually a suicide mission are still searching for answers – and the United States government is still covering up. Once again, the mainstream media is AWOL. So, why are the SEAL Team six Afghan deaths still a mystery?

On June 1st, the Las Vegas Guardian Express published a report on the deaths of 22 members of the elite Tier-one counter-terrorism unit more commonly known as SEAL Team six, when their helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan in August of 2011. Although the official line is that none of those killed in the Afghan crash took part in the team’s May 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan, one source said that at least a couple of them were involved in both missions, according to a report in The Hill. Regardless, it seems that SEAL Team six’s problems stem from that very mission.

Following the Republican triumphs on election day, which will radically change the composition of both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, many believed President Barack Obama would understand the "error of his ways," according to a number of political and law enforcement analysts. Unfortunately they claim that Obama appears oblivious to the facts. During his press conference on Wednesday, not even 24-hours after his party's defeat, he said that if Congress doesn't pass what he considers immigration reform he will begin his own version of reform by taking the first step towards amnesty: ordering a reduction in deportations of working immigrants living in the country illegally.

Samsung's latest breed of plasmas and HDTVs may allow hackers, or even the company itself, to see and hear you and your family, and collect extremely personal data.

The new models, which are closer than ever to personal computers, offer high-tech features that have previously been unavailable, including a built-in HD camera, microphone set and face and speech recognition software.

Many people do not know that the USA PATRIOT Act was already written and ready to go long before September 11th. Recent criticism of Bush's admission that he had received warnings only weeks before September 11th has made it more important to understand the origins of the USAPA.

The USA PATRIOT Act -- the so-called "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001," a.k.a. the USAPA -- was enacted in the immediate wake of 9/11, riding a wave of fear that spread over the nation. This Act has caused much concern amongst civil rights advocates. The Administration, however, responded to such concerns by calling critics unpatriotic. Now, the White House has had a similar response to critics of Bush's recent admission of early warnings.

On Friday October 10th, 2014 a Notice from the federal registry reveals that the federal government is mounting retaliations against the Bundy family and the Southern Nevada people.

Federal Register / Vol. 79, No.197 Notice, outlines plans to make the Bundy ranch and most of the rest of Southern Nevada, Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACECs). 90 days from October 10th, 2014 these proposals will become federal law without consent from the Nevada State legislatures or the people of Southern Nevada.

Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACECs) are human restricted management areas. ACECs have been a tool used by the federal government to gain further control of large masses of western lands and the resources.

As proposed, nearly 3 million acres in Southern Nevada will be locked away from the people. This includes most uses on the land (recreational, agricultural or otherwise).

Listed below are just a few of the outlined restriction that come with ACECs:

This FEMA Capstone event has created Panic and Fear across this country. It has Inflicted Emotional Distress on millions and millions of Americans who where brainwashed by the 24/7 National Television News cycle.

Parents of the supposed children filed complaints to the CT Attorney General George Jespen demanding more money from the $29 million dollars raised by the United Way Western Ct for the death of their child at Sandy Hook.

Yet they have yet to file a lawsuit against the Newtown School Board, the Newtown Police Department, the CT State Police and the Medical Emergency providers that did not go inside the Sandy Hook Elementary School the entire day to save those children and school staff from serious injurioes and those clinging to life.

Webmaster's Commentary:

I am not in favor of a new government investigation because it just gives the government another chance to polish up the lies at taxpayer expense. I do favor everyone looking at the facts for themselves, understand that there is a lot of total BS being pumped onto the internet to try to keep you confused, and come to your own conclusion. Nowhere in the Constitution does it saw We The People have to let the government make up our minds for us about anything.

A North Texas city that sits atop a natural gas reserve is preparing for an extended court battle after voters made it the first in the state to ban further hydraulic fracturing — a fight that cities nationwide considering similar laws will likely be watching closely.

An industry group and the state's little-known but powerful General Land Office responded quickly to the measure Denton approved Tuesday night, seeking an injunction in District Court to stop it from being enforced.

Though it’s a bedrock American principle that citizens can steer their own government by electing new officials, Glennon suggests that in practice, much of our government no longer works that way. In a new book, “National Security and Double Government,” he catalogs the ways that the defense and national security apparatus is effectively self-governing, with virtually no accountability, transparency, or checks and balances of any kind. He uses the term “double government”: There’s the one we elect, and then there’s the one behind it, steering huge swaths of policy almost unchecked. Elected officials end up serving as mere cover for the real decisions made by the bureaucracy.

he cause of the shooting-down of the Malaysian passenger plane MH-17 on July 17th (while that plane was flying over the conflict-zone during Ukraine’s civil war) is becoming clearer and clearer, despite the rigorous continuing attempts by Western ‘news’ media to cover it up and to hide from the public the evidence that clearly shows what brought down this airliner.

One of the things I noticed about being in India when I was there, not all that long ago, was that life was cheap. I was in one of the poorest parts of India, although there are other locations that are even more extreme. There were a lot of things I was not prepared for, given that everything I knew about India was based on things I had heard or read. The reality of it was a great deal more overwhelming.

Now that Republican lawmakers will control both houses of the U.S. Congress beginning in Jan. 1, 2015, many conservatives and libertarians want them to pursue the truth regarding corruption, abuse and criminal acts within the decidedly partisan Internal Revenue Service. A top nonprofit, nonpartisan Washington, D.C., watchdog reported on Wednesday that officials from the scandal-ridden Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after saying they would do all they could to retrieve the requested documents, especially the IRS's controversial employee Lois Lerner's emails, admitted that they did absolutely nothing to try to find the mysterious "missing emails."

The former head of the world’s biggest spy agency didn’t just oversee the collection of billions of AT&T records. He also tried to make money off its customers.

At the same time Gen. Keith Alexander was running the National Security Agency, the United States’ biggest spying outfit, he was also trading stocks in an obscure technology company that had a sweetheart deal with one of the NSA’s most important sources of intelligence—the global phone and Internet giant AT&T.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has announced he will launch an inquiry into allegations that British secret service agents spied on foreign governments at two consecutive international climate summits in 2009 and 2010.

ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jon Karl reported that according to WH officials “the president will move forward with an executive order on immigration reform “no matter how big a shellacking Democrats get tonight” during ABC’s Election coverage on Tuesday.

Advocates for young workers took Stephen Poloz to task Tuesday after the Bank of Canada governor recommended that jobless university graduates beef up their resumes by working for free.

Webmaster's Commentary:

This will certainly help the bottom line of businesses that employ (and abuse) these college educated slaves, but is actually bad for the overall economy as these free workers have no money to pump back into the economy right alongside the former paid workers whose jobs they now occupy.

Obviously, if a reviewer makes up a story about human fingers in food because she didn't approve of the waitress' hairstyle, the restaurant has a right to take action. That's what defamation laws are for. But some recent threats against reviewers have moved way beyond "dealing with crazy liars" and well into "fuck anyone who doesn't like us" territory. One example is so-called "non-disparagement" clauses. You know those long "terms of sale" agreements on websites that no one actually reads because there's a whole goddamn Internet out there to look at instead? You can just shove a sentence or two in there about how the customer is not allowed to complain online, and boom! You're bad-review proof!

Webmaster's Commentary:

I would have counter-sued under the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and made an example of those bastards! We have a right to complain about crappy products, especially in an age where selling crappy products at inflated prices has become the standard American business model!

Justice Department officials provided House investigators with thousands of documents related to Operation Fast and Furious that President Obama had previously claimed were exempt from congressional review.

In an “election eve dump,” as House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) put it, DOJ handed over 64,280 pages of documents, a release that is still only a partial fulfillment of the committee’s request.

“This production is nonetheless a victory for the legislative branch, a victory for transparency, and a victory for efforts to check Executive Branch power,” Issa said of the release.

In the United States, national and local government and public health authorities badly mishandled the [1918 "Spanish Flu"] epidemic [which killed up to 50 million people worldwide], offering a useful case study.

The context is important. Every country engaged in World War I tried to control public perception. To avoid hurting morale, even in the nonlethal first wave the press in countries fighting in the war did not mention the outbreak. (But Spain was not at war and its press wrote about it, so the pandemic became known as the Spanish flu).

The United States was no different. In 1917 California Senator Hiram Johnson made the since-famous observation that “The first casualty when war comes is truth.” The U.S. government passed a law that made it punishable by 20 years in jail to “utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the government of the United States.”

Webmaster's Commentary:

"It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion." -- Joseph Paul Goebbels. (1897-1945) Nazi Propaganda Minister.

A man who was let go at the end of a temporary job has been ordered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to work for the same firm for six months without pay.

Electronics specialist John McArthur, now unemployed, says he is living off 16p tins of spaghetti and without heating after being sanctioned by a jobcentre for refusing to work unpaid for LAMH Recycle in Motherwell, a Scottish social enterprise.

He says he was happy to work for LAMH under the now-defunct future jobs fund for the minimum wage in 2010-2011, but refuses on principle to do the same job unpaid.

The U.S. is actually one of the world’s worst offenders against press freedom … treating reporters like terrorists and criminals.

Even top mainstream reporters have said that this administration is more hostile to the press than any other in history.

As just one example, the Washington Post reports that USA Today Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page says the current administration is more threatening to press freedom than “any administration in American history,” that she was “really worried” about what could happen if the White House continues to prevent reporters from doing their job of telling the news and telling the truth, and:

This administration has been more restrictive and more challenging to the press, more dangerous to the press, really, than any administration in American history.

Webmaster's Commentary:

"The most transparent administration in history....", my ASTROLABE!!!!

A Halloween-themed private event was targeted by police when there was a suspicion of dancing without a permit.

It happened at the 2014 “Monster Mash” dance party, the third annual event of its kind. It was put on by the event promotion company, Heart of Dixie, and held at the Fiesta Fun Center in St. George, Utah (population 75,000).

Over 400 guests were enjoying the festivities at the October 31st event, participating in all-night enjoyment of bumper boats, go-karts, mini golf, and music.

After 9:30 p.m., St. George police arrived in force to investigate a case of unpermitted dancing. Around 5-6 officers challenged the organizers of the event as not having obtained a proper permit to host the dancing. The venue owner, event promoter, and security coordinator each presented their respective permits, which had been previously approved and issued by the city.

Webmaster's Commentary:

...So THIS is how police officers in St. George Utah interpret the phrase "to protect and serve"?!?!?

Using the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre as its justification, the Obama administration has recently given the psychiatric business and pharmaceutical industry a major gift by quietly introducing a behavioral and mental health program in public schools throughout the United States.

Introducing psychiatric explanations and methodologies into school environments guarantees a growing customer base for the psychiatric profession and pharmaceutical industry. Alongside government’s increasing control of healthcare, the technocratic surveillance and management of everyday thought and behavior is likewise emerging as part of what is deceptively termed “wellness.” In reality such efforts ensure an ever-expanding bureaucracy, handsomely line the pockets of a select few, and further normalize a culture of learned helplessness and control within an environment that already privileges conformity as a matter of routine.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Knowing that the public school district in which my child was enrolled was doing this, possibly without parental consent, would get me to pull that kid out of that school so quickly that the principal's head would be spinning, and start home schooling them.

Noting that U.S. college costs have gone up 500% since 1985, the Washington Post recommends seven countries where U.S. students can go to college for free without bothering to learn the language of the natives or anything so primitive.

These are nations with less wealth than the United States has, but which make college free or nearly free, both for citizens and for dangerous illegals visiting their Homelands.

How do they do it?

Three of them have a higher top tax rate than the United States has, but four of them don’t.

What does the United States spend its money on that these other countries do not? What is the largest public program in the United States? What makes up over 50% of federal discretionary spending in the United States?

If you said “war,” it’s possible you were educated in a fine foreign country.

For starters, vaccine manufacturers are demanding indemnity against lawsuits that may arise from the use of a fast-tracked Ebola vaccine,2 similar to the indemnity claimed by the United Nations (UN), whose peacekeepers stand accused of causing the cholera outbreak in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake that devastated the small country.

An estimated 700,000 Haitians have contracted cholera and 8,500 have died from it since the beginning of the outbreak. While the source of the outbreak could not be conclusively determined, a group of Haitians filed a lawsuit against the UN in 2013.

A lawyer for the US Justice Department recently called for the case to be dismissed, saying the UN is "absolutely immune" to claims of wrongdoing.3 This is the kind of "immunity" vaccine makers want as well, but indemnity might not be quite as easy to get as initially thought in this case.

Regardless of the outcome of today's U.S. mid-term elections, there are some things that won't change one iota. While most of America has finally come to realize what a disaster Obama's presidency has really been in real-world terms, there are at least five other disasters looming in America's near future. And neither Republicans nor Democrats have any real plan to deal with these issues... especially when it's so much easier to get elected by slandering your opponent rather than proposing practical solutions.

So here's my warning on the five biggest threats still facing America in the years ahead. Don't hold your breath thinking anyone in Washington D.C. is willing to address any of these. After all, they are the ones who created most of these problems in the first place.

A recent posting detailed how upper middle class Americans are rapidly losing ground to the one-percenters who averaged $5 million in wealth gains over just three years. It also noted that the global 1% has increased their wealth from $100 trillion to $127 trillion in just three years.

The information came from the Credit Suisse 2014 Global Wealth Databook (GWD), which goes on to reveal much more about the disappearing middle class.

Webmaster's Commentary:

All tyrants seek to destroy the middle class, as it is from the middle class that opposition to oligarchy arises.

Rulers seek to rule. Well, that seems a bit obvious, doesn’t it? And yet, time after time, we elect new leaders, imagining that, “This new group will be better—they’ll represent us as they promised.”

Unfortunately, the democratic system doesn’t really work very well at all. The idea is supposed to be that if old leaders overstep their bounds, new candidates may come forth who promise a reversal of the autocracy of the previous group, and we elect them. They will then proceed to implement that reversal.

Of course, we all know that it’s this last bit that consistently fails to happen. The new group does not fulfil its promises to the electorate—in fact, it almost invariably seeks to increase its power over them. And as each group assumes greater power than the previous one, the country slowly declines, until ultimately, it reaches the state of tyranny.

So Petraeus is the guy, for me representing the responsible analysts who kept telling president Obama, look Afghanistan is a fool's errand. You can surge there just as you surged in Iraq it's not going to make any difference. So I get arrested and I was kept in prison overnight and Petraeus gets lauded I don't really have an account of what happened there. But those are big fans you know and I don't know if he wore the merit badges that he had got from Boy Scouts and other Medals. But he has been known to wear those on a civilian suit, but in any case he probably was given many encomia which was very ill deserved and I only regret that I didn't have a chance to ask him some real questions as I did when I asked Rumsfeld in May of 2006 and I suspect, Rob that's one reason why they wouldn't let me in.

It seems lately that every war the United States gets itself into can’t just be another war, it has to be an open-ended clash of civilizations. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel set out that assessment fairly straightforwardly in his recent comments at the Washington Ideas Festival.

Illegal immigrant children entering the country without their parents or adults, now called “Unaccompanied Adults,” or UACs by the government, are receiving a tax payer subsidized bounty.

From petting zoos with miniature ponies to a tilapia fish farm operations and guitar lessons, UACs are lavished with perks, according to documents released by Sen. Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican.

Preferred contractors reap handsome profit when they provide these dished out perks, in some cases upward to $329 per child a day.

Meanwhile, for citizens, federal and state government have decided to cutback on food stamps and unemployment benefits.

A Boynton Beach police officer has been arrested after he allegedly raped a 20-year-old woman at gunpoint while he was on duty, police said.

Officer Stephen J. Maiorino, an eight-year veteran of the department who was in an episode of the TV show "Cops" in 2010, turned himself in to the Palm Beach County Jail on Thursday. He is now on unpaid administrative leave and "will be fired," Police Chief Jeffrey Katz said.
Boynton Beach officer accused of raping woman at gunpoint
Officer Stephen J. Maiorino is facing multiple charges including armed sexual battery

Maiorino, 35, was charged with armed sexual battery, armed kidnapping and unlawful compensation or reward for official behavior, according to a statement from Boynton Beach Police.

The curse of the U.S. economy today is the downward trend in “take-home pay.” This is the most crucial economic indicator for most Americans. ... Most workers’ pay has not kept up with inflation for at least six years. ...

Why aren’t wages rising? There are several reasons, including that many jobs today don’t pay as well as the ones lost during the recession. ObamaCare has made health insurance more expensive for businesses—as the nation’s biggest employer, Wal-Mart , recently reported—and that takes a bite out of take-home pay. Yet one factor is often overlooked: the tax increase on “the rich” at the beginning of 2013.

Blue Shield of California, one of the state's four major health insurers, has a sales office on the 20th floor of the Pacific Corporate Towers in El Segundo. Had the employees peered down to the plaza on a recent Tuesday morning, they would have seen a small cluster of picketers.

From 300 feet up, it would be impossible to read the signs, or hear the chants, or smell the aroma drifting off the white pickup truck that was parked below in a loading zone. But on the ground, the scent is unmistakable: manure.

Jamie Court, the president of Consumer Watchdog, shovels some into a wheelbarrow and announces that he will be delivering it to Blue Shield's executives.

"We're gonna give them back what they've been giving us for the last five months," he tells a row of news cameras. "We're not buying their bull."

In September, both Apple and Google announced plans to encrypt information on iOS and Android devices by default. Almost immediately, there was a collective freakout by law enforcement types. But, try as they might, these law enforcement folks couldn't paint any realistic scenario of where this would be a serious problem. Sure, they conjured up scenarios, but upon inspection they pretty much all fell apart. Instead, what was clear was that encryption could protectusers from people copying information off of phones without permission, and, in fact, the FBI itself recommends you encrypt the data on your phone.

But it didn't stop FBI director James Comey from ignoring the advice of his own agency and pushing for a new law that would create back doors (he called them front doors, but when asked to explain the difference, he admitted that he wasn't "smart enough" to understand the distinction) in such encryption.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Breakable encryption means the FBI can spy on law abiding citizens, but as we proved with our NSA challenges, real criminals and terrorists will remain invisible.

Former President Bill Clinton claimed on Thursday that one of the main reasons Republicans are expected to perform so strongly in the upcoming midterm elections is their willingness to capitalize on the lingering effects of the 2008 economic recession.

Webmaster's Commentary:

"And you Americans are all WRONG to decide who to vote for because of irrelevant things like whether you have a job or not, lost your home, are going hungry, had your kid killed in a war on the other side of the planet. Really, you need to decide who to vote for based on who has the best TV ads (like my wife) and who is the snappiest dresser (like my wife) and who has the best hair styles (like my wife). What is WRONG with you people?" -- Monica's rival's husband.

US shale oil is now the marginal swing barrel in the new world oil order, and as Goldman Sachs warns (despite Larry Kudlow apparently knowing better), a decline in WTI to $75/bbl would start to significantly slow US shale growth (and thus employment, capex, and the entire US economy).

Webmaster's Commentary:

Obama was intent on harming Russia's oil exports and made a deal with Saudi Arabia to increase production to crush oil prices. But, as has become the hallmark of decision-making by the White House, nobody thought this all the way through as to what harm it might bring to the US. And Saudi Arabia is laughing that US attempts at oil independence are being crushed under the anti-Russian agenda and US dependence on Saudi Arabia will increase!

As voters in Oregon, California, Hawaii and Colorado prepare to weigh in on whether genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, should be banned or regulated in their states or communities, grassroots campaigns are being overwhelmed by millions that agrochemical and food industry titans are pouring in to defeat such measures.

Monsanto alone spent roughly $14 million in various local races this election year.

We’ve all heard about the broke Millennials living at home with mom and dad unable to move out into a very expensive rental. For years, we’ve been told that somehow this young group of people would represent some pent up demand to buy homes. This demand never materialized. Instead, you have tight inventory in certain markets being fought over by investors and those willing to pay current prices while stretching their budgets. Yet volume remains incredibly pathetic. The homeownership rate has fallen dramatically and some point the blame to the Millennials. But as it turns out, the big drop has come from those 35 to 44. Generation X overall has been a massive drag on the housing market. The young are simply not buying homes like they once did and many are opting into the rental market. So how big of a drag is Generation X on the housing market?

Webmaster's Commentary:

Another puff piece trying to find a scapegoat for the economic woes while avoiding a mention of the root cause of all of the problems, which are those private central banks issuing all of the public currency as a loan at interest, a system which by design produces more debt than money with which to pay that debt. But we dare not talk about that reality! So let's drop the blame on the kiddies!

A former Navy attorney who helped lead the military investigation of the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty that killed 34 American servicemen says former President Lyndon Johnson and his defense secretary, Robert McNamara, ordered that the inquiry conclude the incident was an accident.

In a signed affidavit released at a Capitol Hill news conference, retired Capt. Ward Boston said Johnson and McNamara told those heading the Navy's inquiry to "conclude that the attack was a case of 'mistaken identity' despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary."

It was “one of the classic all-American cover-ups,” said retired Admiral Thomas Moorer, a former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman who spent a year investigating the attack as part of an independent panel he formed with other former military officials. The panel also included a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James Akins.

The 9/11 attacks on the United States undoubtedly benefited a number of actors, including the American military-intelligence complex, Israel, and most definitely, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Cold War-era, the area of responsibility for which had long been confined to Europe and North America, used the provisions of Article 5 of the NATO Charter – which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all – to extend NATO’s power deep into Eurasia, particularly in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Kyrgyzstan.

After engaging in out-of-area invasions and occupations of Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, and Syria and, again in Iraq, against the «Islamic State,» the «North Atlantic» military bloc has transformed itself from a Cold War defensive alliance into a global offensive axis of nations that acts with or without United Nations authorization.

There is competition among 17 US intelligence agencies - they catch people whether it is within the law or not to get part of the multi-billion ‘black budget,’ George Mapp, an investigative journalist, said on RT’s In the Now show.

The New York Police Department has detained prominent peace activist and former CIA agent Ray McGovern, with witnesses saying he was “yelling in pain” during arrest. McGovern was detained ahead of a David Petraeus speech that he planned to attend.

Each of us must manage individually or in groups within the sad and irrevocable decay of the world we knew. It's decline accelerates with every passing day. As that progresses, conditions worsen. It will come to pass that many will find it no longer possible to live where they are, while at the same time, having waited too long, are no longer able to move away. Things can occur at a previously unimagined speed, while taking all kinds of frightening and unexpected turns. It stands to reason that the further away one is from the epicenters, the better ones chances are.

Award-winning videographer Sean Malone had a raygun belt buckle confiscated recently by the good folks at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). You know, because all of the 9/11 hijackers were packing rayguns or something.

The relatively new tracking technology allows schools to more accurately follow student attendance, lunch purchases and students who ride buses, but lawmakers in many states have banned specific types of student data collection over privacy concerns, Governing.com reports.

"This year, Florida became the first state to ban the use of biometric identification in its schools. Kansas said biometric data cannot be collected without student or parental consent. New Hampshire, Colorado and North Carolina said the state education departments cannot collect and store biometric data as part of student records.

The Council of Canadians is concerned by the increasing pattern of surveillance under the Harper government of social movement groups, including our own organization.

In June, we denounced the Harper government's order to federal departments to monitor all political demonstrations across the country. The Government Operations Centre is "compiling a list of all known demonstrations" that has included protests against fracking, a healing dance, a prayer ceremony and a fundraiser. More on this at Government Operations Centre to monitor all protests.

Nurse Kaci Hickox, who has made headlines over the last few days by refusing to quarantine herself after returning from the Ebola front lines in Africa, turns out to have been trained as an "intelligence officer" under a two-year CDC program modeled after the U.S. military.

As you can see from the document below, Hickox graduated from a two-year CDC intelligence officer training program in 2012. This is the same nurse whose LinkedIn page was recently scrubbed to hide her ties to the CDC, an agency that stands to benefit tremendously in both political power and budgets if an Ebola outbreak sweeps across America.

There is more truth about American journalism in the film “Kill the Messenger,” which chronicles the mainstream media’s discrediting of the work of the investigative journalist Gary Webb, than there is in the movie “All the President’s Men,” which celebrates the exploits of the reporters who uncovered the Watergate scandal.

Reporters on the ground aren’t necessarily ideological, Attkisson says, but the major network news decisions get made by a handful of New York execs who read the same papers and think the same thoughts.

Often they dream up stories beforehand and turn the reporters into “casting agents,” told “we need to find someone who will say . . .” that a given policy is good or bad. “We’re asked to create a reality that fits their New York image of what they believe,” she writes.

Webmaster's Commentary:

"Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have." -- Richard Salent, Former President CBS News.

"News is what someone wants to suppress. Everything else is advertising". -- former NBC news President Rubin Frank

Asked to give a toast before the prestigious New York Press Club in 1880, John Swinton, the former Chief of Staff at the New York Sun, made this candid confession [it's worth noting that Swinton was called "The Dean of His Profession" by other newsmen, who admired him greatly]:

" There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job.

If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell the country for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press. We are the tools and vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes. "

A billboard challenging Amazon to fully disclose the terms of its $600 million contract to provide cloud computing services for the Central Intelligence Agency has been unveiled at a busy intersection near Amazon’s Seattle headquarters.

The billboard’s launch — asking “the $600 million question: What’s the CIA Doing on Amazon’s Cloud?” — marks the escalation of a campaign by the online activist organizations RootsAction.org and ExposeFacts.org. The groups are calling for accountability from Amazon in an effort to inform the public of serious privacy implications of the Amazon-CIA collaboration. (ExposeFacts.org is a project of the Institute for Public Accuracy.)

It just happened for real in Saginaw. Michigan, courtesy of the police. The execution starts at 1:50 on the video as the police fire 45 shots at the victim and continue shooting after he is clearly down!

Despite abundant evidence that officers showed a reckless disregard for Milton's life, and opened fire without there being a direct threat the the lives of the officers, the U.S. Justice Department did not charge any of the officers responsible for the killing.

With lights flashing they converged in two cars on a white, late model Mercedes, blocking it from making a fast getaway from the entrance to the casino resort. The fact it wasn’t trying to escape made their maneuver all the more effective.

The Patriot Act continues to wreak its havoc on civil liberties. Section 213 was included in the Patriot Act over the protests of privacy advocates and granted law enforcement the power to conduct a search while delaying notice to the suspect of the search. Known as a “sneak and peek” warrant, law enforcement was adamant Section 213 was needed to protect against terrorism. But the latest government report detailing the numbers of “sneak and peek” warrants reveals that out of a total of over 11,000 sneak and peek requests, only 51 were used for terrorism. Yet again, terrorism concerns appear to be trampling our civil liberties.

A North Brunswick police officer arrested an Edison police officer for DUI.

The Edison police officer then conspired with four of his Edison police pals to plot revenge against the North Brunswick officer who arrested him.

The Edison officer was then found to be an all around dirtbag, engaging in vandalism, having drugs and drug paraphernalia, having illegal weapons, and was also charged with attempted murder after setting fire to the home of his superior officer.

When they will conspire to harm one of their own, they won't even hesitate to ruin your life.

Last Friday British media reported that the UK’s Metropolitan Police would pay £400,000 (about $680,000) in a settlement with a woman, known only as Jacqui, who was conned by a man who fathered her first child, said that he loved her, and then one day disappeared. She knew him as Bob Robinson. His real name, as she would learn 25 years later, was Bob Lambert. He was an operative with the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), a special unit within the British police that infiltrated a host of environmentalist groups to gather intelligence. In several cases the operatives, almost always men, established long-term intimate relationships with women in order to gain access to the world of underground animal rights or environmental activists.

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal gave prominence to the following headline on page one of its newspaper with the story jumping to page A2: “Bad Market Timing Fueled Wealth Gap.” Through the use of the word “fueled” in that headline, the reader is conditioned to believe that market timing is a significant cause of wealth inequality in the United States – a completely bogus idea for which there exists mountains of research to the contrary.

Feds Retaliate against the Bundy Ranch and the Southern Nevada People On Friday October 10th, 2014 a Notice from the federal registry reveals that the federal government is mounting retaliations against the Bundy family and the Southern Nevada people.

Federal Register / Vol. 79, No.197 Notice, outlines plans to make the Bundy ranch and most of the rest of Southern Nevada, Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACECs). 90 days from October 10th, 2014 these proposals will become federal law without consent from the Nevada State legislatures or the people of Southern Nevada.

Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACECs) are human restricted management areas. ACECs have been a tool used by the federal government to gain further control of large masses of western lands and the resources.

As proposed, nearly 3 million acres in Southern Nevada will be locked away from the people. This includes most uses on the land (recreational, agricultural or otherwise).

Webmaster's Commentary:

"To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;" -- Article 1 Section 8, The Constitution of the United States

In 1968, Mr. Hoover authorized the F.B.I. to wiretap a left-wing journalist who wrote critical stories about Nazis in America, internal records show. Mr. Hoover declared the journalist, Charles Allen, a potential threat to national security.

Similarly, in 1972, the CIA Director relabelled “dissidents” as “terrorists” so he could continue spying on them.

Indeed, the U.S. treats whistleblowers and investigative reporters as terrorists.

Kaci Hickox, the nurse who was quarantined in New Jersey over her high risk status as a possible Ebola carrier, has ties to the CDC which have been deliberately hidden by the mainstream media.

Right now, a war is waging between states like New Jersey, New York and Illinois — which have all decided to quarantine travelers at high risk of Ebola infections — and the federal government which is adamantly opposed to border security, medical quarantines and travel bans.

Kaci Hickox emerged in the center of this debate just yesterday when she complained of being “interrogated” and held in violation of her civil rights. Kaci’s LinkedIn.com profile, which described her links to the CDC, was scrubbed from the web earlier today, and even Google cache has strangely been cleared of her profile which previously detailed her ties to the CDC.

They met at a McDonald’s in Northern Virginia at the beginning of 2013, and the source (she dubs him Number One) warned her about the threat of government spying. During their next hamburger rendezvous, Big Mac told Attkisson, then a CBS News reporter constantly at odds with the Obama administration, that he was “shocked” and “flabbergasted” by his examination of her computer and that this was “worse than anything Nixon ever did.”

The U.S. government has identified the person it believes is the so-called "second leaker" who has given over classified national security documents to some of the same journalists who have reported on many of the documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden this year, a news report claimed on Monday.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Rather than let the FBI pick them off one at a time, everyone with secrets needs to go public at the exact same time.

The Internal Revenue Service has been seizing bank accounts belonging to small businesses and individuals who regularly made deposits of less than $10,000, but broke no laws. And the government is refusing to return all the money taken.

Town officials claim that a business which Hoeppner operates on his property is in violation of zoning ordinances.

In 2011, the town confiscated large amounts of personal property from Hoeppner because he refused to pay the fines. Several tractors, pallets and equipment were auctioned off by the government for “pennies on the dollar” according to Hoeppner’s attorney, Ryan Lister.

Next, the town imposed a $500-a-day fine on Hoeppner for refusing to remove certain equipment from his property. Eventually, the bill ran up close to $100,000, and the town came to collect the money with an armored truck and two dozen cops.

The pro-Israel Canadian government is modifying the country’s criminal code to ban any criticism of the Zionist regime for atrocities against Palestinians, an analyst says.

In a column for Press TV website, Brandon Martinez has analyzed the proposed cyber-bullying law (Bill C-13) by the administration of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

“The Zionist ruling clique of Canada, through their front-man Stephen Harper, is seeking to beef up the already-existing Orwellian ‘hate propaganda’ law, which has been primarily used to curtail criticism of Zionists and Israel,” wrote Martinez.

A British pensioner who quipped "I'm not a Muslim" when asked to remove his shoes at airport security spent more than six months with a criminal charge of racism hanging over him, before the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the case just one day before it was due in court. Paul Griffith, who was flying from Stansted Airport in Essex, has described the experience as "incredibly stressful", the Daily Mail has reported.

Twelve Nobel Peace Prize winners penned an open letter to President Barack Obama urging his administration to release a U.S. Senate report on the CIA's use of torture.

In the letter, released Sunday night on TheCommunity.com, the laureates asked for "full disclosure to the American people of the extent and use of torture and rendition by American soldiers, operatives, and contractors, as well as the authorization of torture and rendition by American officials." The letter also pushed for a clear plan for the closing of Guantanamo Bay and other international sites where the U.S. has engaged in torture.

The laureates spoke out sharply against any use of torture, but said that the U.S.' tactics were particularly troubling.

Webmaster's Commentary:

A short memo to those who signed this petition: what you are asking for will only happen when pigs fly.

At the end of the day, the US President Obama is no less a complete tool of the banks and the corporations which put him into office than was his Republican predecessor.

Banks and corporations love war, because war is profitable. And if it takes torture elicit confessions with which to justify wars, US leadership is certainly not morally opposed to torturing.
We have known, since the time of the Catholic Inquisition, that torture simply gets the tortured person to say what the torturer wants them to say in order to get the torture to stop; it rarely produces actionable intelligence, if at all.

Fans were startled by the heavy presence of police officers, drone surveillance, and warrantless checkpoints upon entry at the local high school football game.

The prison-like security at Summerville High School was called “the reality of the world we live in today.” As students and fans filed into the homecoming football game on Friday, October 24th, 2014, they were forced to place their belongings in a bin for police examination, then walk through a metal detector. Stadium-goers were restricted from bringing certain items into the stands.

Fans also were quick to notice the conspicuous presence of police officers mixed among the crowd and perched on the rooftops, surveillance drones whirring overhead, and even SWAT team members ready for action.

The security bonanza was imposed because school district officials had allegedly been tipped off that rival gangs might fight at the game, WCIV reported. No incidents of violence were reported.

Webmaster's Commentary:

I have precisely two words for the parents and the students who were "treated" to this behaviour, courtesy of their local police: home schooling.

For years, 75-year-old Roger Hoeppner has been at odds with his local government in Marathon County, Wisconsin, over $80,000 dollars worth of fines relating to the use of his property.

Hoeppner has strongly disputed the fines that have been imposed on him, and he has been through multiple lawsuits and appeals with the city, in a fight to use his property the way that he wants to.

Town officials claim that a business which Hoeppner operates on his property is in violation of zoning ordinances.

In 2011, the town confiscated large amounts of personal property from Hoeppner because he refused to pay the fines. Several tractors, pallets and equipment were auctioned off by the government for “pennies on the dollar” according to Hoeppner’s attorney, Ryan Lister.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Absoflippinglutely unbelievable.

It is obvious that the county's alleged "justice department" wanted to make an "example" of this man

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Obama administration are attempting to censor key facts from a long-delayed Senate report on the agency’s illegal torture program. Secret negotiations between the Senate Intelligence Committee and the CIA regarding the censorship of the report, which has remained unpublished for nearly two years, continue to delay its release with no end in sight.

Sometimes those who follow politics closely erroneously assume that everyone else follows it closely as well. But for those of you who don’t, here’s a brief explanation of Fast and Furious:

It’s not just a movie series, it’s the name of an operation where the Obama administration illegally gave thousands of weapons, including military grade guns, to Mexican criminals, supposedly in an attempt to track criminal activity in Mexico. However, not only was the operation a complete failure, hundreds of Mexicans (and at least one American) were killed with these weapons. When Congressional investigators, who, by all accounts, were not aware of the operation (and did not authorize it) began investigating it, Obama claimed executive privilege in order to keep damning information about his involvement in the operation kept secret.

A 75-year-old Wisconsin man is considering filing a federal civil rights lawsuit after officials in Marathon County sent an armored military to collect fines that resulted from a property dispute.

Attorney Ryan Lister told the Milwaikee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel that the Marathon County Sheriff’s Department overreacted when it sent 24 armed officers and the Marathon County Response Vehicle (MARV) to 75-year-old Roger Hoeppner’s home earlier this month.

Lister said that his client contacted him as soon as he noticed the deputies arrive on the property, but roadblocks prevented the attorney from reaching the home until Hoeppner had been taken away in handcuffs.

“Rather than provide Mr. Hoeppner or his counsel notice…and attempt to collect without spending thousands of taxpayer dollars on the military-style maneuvers, the town unilaterally decided to enforce its civil judgment” with overwhelming force, the attorney noted.

Furious with the government plan to impose tax on Internet data traffic, thousands of Hungarians rallied in front of the Economy Ministry in Budapest to protect the freedom of the internet from the 'anti-democratic' measure.

Tens of thousands gathered in front of the Economy Ministry building on Sunday, urging the politicians to scrap the plan that will see internet service providers (ISPs) pay 150 forints ($0.62) for every gigabyte of data traffic transferred over their networks.

Kaci Hickox, the nurse who was quarantined in New Jersey over her high risk status as a possible Ebola carrier, has ties to the CDC which have been deliberately hidden by the mainstream media.

Right now, a war is waging between states like New Jersey, New York and Illinois -- which have all decided to quarantine travelers at high risk of Ebola infections -- and the federal government which is adamantly opposed to border security, medical quarantines and travel bans.

Kaci Hickox emerged in the center of this debate just yesterday when she complained of being "interrogated" and held in violation of her civil rights. Kaci's LinkedIn.com profile, which described her links to the CDC, was scrubbed from the web earlier today, and even Google cache has strangely been cleared of her profile which previously detailed her ties to the CDC.

In February 2012, the scientific journal Nature published an editorial opinion piece, Frozen Out, calling on the Canadian government to reform policies that restrict media access to federal scientists. This followed numerous stories documenting delays and confusion in how different federal departments respond to requests for media interviews on scientific matters.

How has the Harper government reacted? A new report, Can Scientists Speak, finds that federal media policies remain far more restrictive than those in the United States, and gives low to failing grades to nearly all 16 departments that employ scientists.

Claims from Iranian officials that the US is secretly supporting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — even as it bombs the jihadists in both countries — are far from unusual. Since the US airstrikes began in early August, the Supreme Leader, Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, and military commanders have all accused Washington of creating the Islamic State’s threat.

However, the deputy head of Iran’s armed forces, General Massoud Jazayeri (pictured), has found a way of enhancing the allegations — on Saturday, he effectively redrew the map of the region to prove the US perfidy.

The topic of civil asset forfeiture has been high on our agenda recently as federal ‘agents’ discover how to steal Americans’ hard-earned cash with zero repurcussions , and decide unilaterally how much cash a ‘common man’ is allowed to carry; but as The NY Times reports, the escalation to The IRS brings a whole new world of possibilities with regard asset confiscation based on no actual crime being proved…

A little over a year after a French court forced Twitter to remove some anti-Semitic content, experts say the ruling has had a ripple effect, leading other Internet companies to act more aggressively against hate speech in an effort to avoid lawsuits.

The 2013 ruling by the Paris Court of Appeals settled a lawsuit brought the year before by the Union of Jewish Students of France over the hashtag #UnBonJuif, which means “a good Jew” and which was used to index thousands of anti-Semitic comments that violated France’s law against hate speech.

Since then, YouTube has permanently banned videos posted by Dieudonne, a French comedian with 10 convictions for inciting racial hatred against Jews. And in February, Facebook removed the page of French Holocaust denier Alain Soral for “repeatedly posting things that don’t comply with the Facebook terms,” according to the company. Soral’s page had drawn many complaints in previous years but was only taken down this year.

Yesterday, a jury unanimously stood in defense of juror educators’ right to share general education information about jury nullification and the Fully Informed Jury Association on Facebook, in delivering a Not Guilty verdict in the case of Luke Lamb. Greene County, Illinois board member Lamb was charged with unlawful communication with a juror after his opponent in the local political race for sheriff sent a Facebook conversation of his to the State’s Attorney’s office for review.

The Internal Revenue Service agents did not accuse Ms. Hinders of money laundering or cheating on her taxes — in fact, she has not been charged with any crime. Instead, the money was seized solely because she had deposited less than $10,000 at a time, which they viewed as an attempt to avoid triggering a required government report.

“How can this happen?” Ms. Hinders said in a recent interview. “Who takes your money before they prove that you’ve done anything wrong with it?”

Every so often some smug liberal will ask the annoying question, Where is the Palestinian Gandhi? Why do the Palestinians not try non-violent resistance to Israeli occupation? And so on, in monotonous fashion.

Those same smug liberals do not bother to inform themselves about the basic realities of Israel's West Bank imprisonment regime.

Palestinian activists, human rights defenders, journalists and academics are frequently picked up off the streets, out of their homes in the middle of the night, in front of their families – Israel's thug soldiers take them off to jail and intern them without trial, often in conditions of torture and isolation.

Military courts then rubber-stamp the actions of Israel's military and spy agencies.

Eric Hobsbawm and Christopher Hill had phones tapped, correspondence intercepted and friends and wives monitored
MI5 amassed hundreds of records on Eric Hobsbawm and Christopher Hill, two of Britain’s leading historians who were both once members of the Communist party, secret files have revealed.

The scholars were subjected to persistent surveillance for decades as MI5 and police special branch officers tapped and recorded their telephone calls, intercepted their private correspondence and monitored their contacts, the files show. Some of the surveillance gave MI5 more details about their targets’ personal lives than any threat to national security.

In a surprise move late Friday, a key Democrat on the Federal Election Commission called for burdensome new rules on Internet-based campaigning, prompting the Republican chairman to warn that Democrats want to regulate online political sites and even news media like the Drudge Report.

You got all kinds of evil running loose in these times. By definition, these are evil times, being as it is the Kali Yuga. The very worst of us profit without reserve and the best of us are hammered into the pavement. There's supposed to be some kind of justice in this but... those of us who are within the constraints of single lifetimes and lacking the panorama view of the realized, are hard pressed to see it. It's there somewhere. Of course, I'm speaking only for those of us that believe in something. For those of us that believe in nothing, except ones own blind, naked ignorance, the appearance of justice is nowhere to be seen. There's one thing we can certainly presume is true and that is that we will find out at some point, even if... in the cases of those who believe nothing, they find nothing. It might be that that is how it works; to each according to what they do or do not believe.

With Attorney General Eric Holder on his way out of office and the newer stories taking center stage in the Obama cavalcade of scandals, many believed the investigation into the botched Operation Fast and Furious was DOA (dead-on-arrival). However on Thursday, a public-interest group renowned for uncovering government corruption and criminal activity released Department of Justice (DOJ) documents that revealed that not only did Holder lie under oath before a congressional panel, but that the cover-up leads right into the Oval Office.

Just months after Edward Snowden unmasked the National Security Agency's massive domestic spying program, The New York Times broke news of the Hemisphere Project, which pairs experts from telecommunications giant AT&T with federal and local anti-drug officials, including DEA agents. It gives law enforcement officials access to "every call that passes through an AT&T switch -- not just those made by AT&T customers -- and includes calls dating back 26 years," according to the Times report. That's around 4 billion call records every day, each logged with information on the location of callers. The official government slideshow describing the program suggested it had been helpful in tracking drug dealers who frequently change phones, or use disposable "burner" phones.

Marion Nestle reports that several supplement manufacturers are selling vitamins that promise to prevent or treat Ebola. The claims caught the attention of the FDA, which has issued warning letters to three of the manufacturers: Natural Solutions Foundation, Young Living, and DoTERRA International LLC. The agency lists specific claims it finds worrisome; for example, on a Young Living consultant's website, "Ebola Virus can not live in the presence of cinnamon bark."

Webmaster's Commentary:

Despite the WHO authorizing the use of unproven treatments to deal with the Ebola the reality is that only treatments from the giant pharmaceutical corporations are being allowed. The FDA, still looking at Ebola from the economic point of view, is coming down hard on anyone offering treatments from which the pharmaceutical corporations cannot make the profit.

We know the FDA is blocking use of even mention of nano silver products wherever they can, despite the fact that both Nigeria and Sierra Leone have told the US Government to shove their regulations (possibly in response to the growing awareness that the US Government may have triggered the Ebola outbreak in Africa with a botched vaccine trial) and are treating Ebola patients with nano-silver and reporting positive results.

That being said, it was observed during the 1918 flu pandemic (also triggered by a botched vaccine trial) that workers at a factory that processed cinnamon for bakeries did not come down with the flu. This triggered widespread use of cinnamon, usually mixed with milk, which did in fact lower the fever and reduce symptoms of those already infected with the flu. Most naturally occurring antibiotics are broad spectrum, which means they are effective against a wide variety of infections, whereas modern pharmaceutical antibiotics are designed to be effective against specific infectious agents and are usually useless against others.

So do your own research and make your own choices.

After all, are you willing to bet your life the government, media, and pharmaceutical corporations are telling you the truth?

The hardware hackers at Hack A Day first reported that a recent driver update deployed over Windows Update is bricking cloned versions of the very common FTDI FT232 [USB to UART] chip.

In response to increasing anger and criticism from security researchers on Twitter, FTDI admitted using the remote kill switch and is adamant that this move is necessary to fight counterfeiting.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Oh yes, let's punish the end user who may not even know his product has a counterfeit chip by killing his hardware!

Does FTDI not understand that the counterfeiters will go on selling their chips anyway not caring if they eventually fail? Look at the flood of fake 128G SD cards hitting the market. These are actually 8G chips reprogrammed to identify themselves as 128G to the computer. Every time a particular brand is identified as phony, the counterfeiters simply change their company name, change the packaging, and go right on selling their products, not caring that they will not actually work. FTDI's stunt will harm a lot of innocent end users and will not stop the counterfeiters. It won't even slow them down. Someone needs to be fired for this mistake!

The Obama administration is claiming executive privilege over more than 15,000 documents related to Operation Fast and Furious, including correspondence between Attorney General Eric Holder and his wife, according to records received Wednesday night by the watchdog group Judicial Watch.

Last month, a federal judge ordered the Justice Department to release to Judicial Watch the list of documents, known as a “Vaughn index,” that it is withholding from the public, calling its requests for further delays “unconvincing.”

The 1,307-page Vaughn index lists 15,662 documents related to Operation Fast and Furious that the Obama administration is asserting executive privilege over—the first time that full list and description of the records has been released.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Basically Obama just told Judicial Watch, the courts, and the American people to fuck off!

According to rumors first reported by Breitbart.com, President Obama will release an immigration bombshell in the form of an executive order later this year.

The conservative site first discovered a draft of an online solicitation by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigrations Services that seeks vendors that can produce up to 34 million blank work permits and green cards over the next five years

Newspaper columnists and radio talk show hosts are paying attention to fresh polling data that shows just how uneasy Canadians are about the concept of privatization.

Last week, the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) publicized the results of the polling done in September in which:

70 per cent of respondents agreed that: “allowing a few people to profit from services meant for all of us weakens our country's principles and core values of caring and sharing."
82 per cent agreed that “when private companies get contracts to provide government programs, the public loses control over services people depend on.”

The document details the Attorney General Holder’s personal involvement in managing the Justice Department’s strategy on media and Congressional investigations into the Fast and Furious scandal. Notably, the document discloses that emails between Attorney General Holder and his wife Sharon Malone – as well as his mother – are being withheld under an extraordinary claim of executive privilege as well as a dubious claim of deliberative process privilege under the Freedom of Information Act. The “First Lady of the Justice Department” is a physician and not a government employee.

A federal court shot down a tea party group’s effort to permanently bar the IRS from targeting conservative groups for special scrutiny, issuing a ruling Thursday that says the tax agency has already taken enough steps to correct the problem.

Judge Reggie B. Walton also refused a request by True the Vote, a Texas-based group that tries to combat election fraud, to make Lois G. Lerner and other current and former IRS employees pay a penalty for having blocked the group’s tax-exempt status and made intrusive inquiries into the group’s activities.

According to sources familiar with the CIA inspector general report that details the alleged abuses by agency officials, CIA agents impersonated Senate staffers in order to gain access to Senate communications and drafts of the Intelligence Committee investigation. These sources requested anonymity because the details of the agency's inspector general report remain classified.

"If people knew the details of what they actually did to hack into the Senate computers to go search for the torture document, jaws would drop. It's straight out of a movie," said one Senate source familiar with the document.

More than a third of people with debilitating and incurable conditions and are too sick to work, such as Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis, are being placed in the ‘Work Related Activity Group (WRAG) of ESA, even though their condition is certain to worsen over time.

Claimants placed within the WRAG receive less money than those in the higher ‘Support Group’, who are not required to prepare for work or attend Job Centre interviews, and face the threat of sanctions if they fail to comply with strict requirements. Some may have their ESA entitlement removed after only a year as the government attempts to “support people into work”.

The conditions are so bad that two United Nations special rapporteurs were invited to Detroit by a number of community groups: the special rapporteur on human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, and the other one on adequate housing and standard of living without discrimination. They heard from residents, council members, the mayor, and congressmen. In their joint statement, they said that the human rights to safe drinking water, sanitation, and adequate housing both derive from the right to an adequate standard of living protected under Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“Since 2008, fines imposed on the nation’s largest banks have far exceeded $100 billion. The pattern of bad behavior did not end with the financial crisis, but continued despite the considerable public sector intervention that was necessary to stabilize the financial system. As a consequence, the financial industry has largely lost the public trust. To illustrate, a 2012 Harris poll found that 42 percent of people responded either ‘somewhat’ or ‘a lot’ to the statement that Wall Street ‘harms the country’; furthermore, 68 percent disagreed with the statement: ‘In general, people on Wall Street are as honest and moral as other people.’ ”

Further cementing that public distrust, the media was barred from attending Monday’s conference at the New York Fed. Press members who nonetheless reported on the event evoked a recurring theme of violent acts to deal with incorrigible actors.

A “no refusal” checkpoint where drivers will be forced to stop and potentially submit to having their blood taken on the side of the road by law enforcement authorities is planned for Clark County, Ohio tomorrow.

“Every car will be checked to ensure that drivers are not impaired. If there is sufficient probable cause to believe that a driver is operating a vehicle while impaired, law enforcement will seek a blood search warrant from a “neutral and detached magistrate,” reports ABC 22.

The time and location of the checkpoint will not be released until hours before it is set to begin.

Activists who mobilized after the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown said Wednesday they have collected 200,000 signatures backing their demand that federal agencies address a nationwide trend of police violence with major reforms — including the collection and release of comprehensive data on how many Americans are killed by law enforcement officers each year.

Now, in California, some prosecutors have resigned because Eric Holder’s boys were fabricating evidence in order to confiscate property in the tens of millions of dollars. One former prosecutor Eric Overby stated: “It’s called the Department of Justice. It’s not called the Department of Revenue.” Overby has stated that in his entire career, “I’ve never seen anything like this. Never.” The entire court has had to step aside because all judges are tainted. Just amazing.

Six years after QE started, and just about the time when we for the first time said that the primary consequence of QE would be unprecedented wealth and class inequality (in addition to fiat collapse, even if that particular bridge has not yet been crossed), even the central banks themselves - the very institutions that unleashed QE - are now admitting that the record wealth disparity in the world - surpassing that of the Great Depression and even pre-French revolution France - is caused by "monetary policy", i.e., QE.

Last week, two very important stories came out; one from Reuters and the other from Buzzfeed. They both zero in on how current NSA employees are using their expertise and connections to make big money in the private sector while still working at the NSA. Let’s start with the Reuters story, which covers former NSA-head Keith Alexander’s business relationship with the NSA’s current Chief Technical Officer, Patrick Dowd.

Before we get into the meat of this story, I want to set the stage with a little background. In case you forgot, Keith Alexander launched his own cyber-security firm, IronNet Cybersecurity Inc., earlier this year.

More and more countries are using electronic payments instead of physical as they’re much cheaper, easily traceable and help to combat terrorism financing, money laundering, tax evasion and the black market, economist Konstantin Gurdgiev told RT.

Denmark’s Central Bank Nationalbanken plans to stop printing banknotes and minting coins by the end of 2016. It claims that people increasingly prefer to use credit cards and electronic money in transactions rather than cash.

In perhaps the most stunning documentation yet of abuses by Eric Holder’s Justice Department, two former Assistant United States Attorneys spoke to defense attorneys and revealed appalling deceit and corruption of justice. This latest litigation time bomb has exploded from multi-million dollar litigation originally brought by the Department of Justice against Sierra Pacific based on allegations that the lumber company and related defendants were responsible for a wildfire that destroyed 65,000 acres in California.

In what was dubbed the “Moonlight Fire” case, the tables are now turned. The defendants have discovered new evidence and filed a stunning motion. The new evidence and disclosures are being taken seriously by the Chief Judge of the Eastern District of California—as they should be. In a shocking action, Judge Morrison C. England Jr. ordered the recusal of every federal judge in the Eastern District of California.

The French Revolution had its Napoleon Bonaparte and the 18th of Brumaire counterrevolution.

The American Revolution is witnessing a soft cover edition under President Obama, but without Napoleon’s “little whiff of grapeshot.”

Sermonizing on behalf of the president at Harvard Law School on Sept. 16, John Brennan, current Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) and then Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, declared: “[O]ur highest priority is — and always will be — the safety and security of the American people. As President Obama has said, we have no greater responsibility as a government.”

But the president and DCI profoundly err. They have subordinated liberty to an effete quest for a risk-free existence, and inverted the nation’s philosophy and Constitution.

Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower who revealed the extent of American and British surveillance programmes, should be charged with murder, according to a senior United States congressman.

Republican Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House of Representatives intelligence committee, told a meeting in the House of Commons in London on Tuesday evening that Snowden was a "traitor" who was now living in the "loving arms" of Russian spies.

"The [US] government has pressed charges on Mr Snowden," he said. "We are treating him, as I would argue, the traitor that he is." Rogers added: "And by the way, and this is important, I would charge him for murder."

Rogers also warned the gathering of British MPs and interested foreign policy professionals that British policy of restricting its strikes against Isis to Iraq was giving the Islamic militant group a "safe haven" in Syria.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Memo to Congressman Rogers: you, and your British counterparts were thoroughly humiliated when Snowden did what he did.

And what Snowden did was to speak the truth; something to which you, and your colleagues in the security industrial complex, appear to be pathologically...allergic.

The further revelations of NSAgate, IRSgate, APgate, Americans understand that their lives are now under total surveillance, and every narrative which begins to suggest that we are not, needs to be put to absolute, scientific, and relentless scrutiny by We the People.

And I have to wonder, sir; by whom are you surveilled, that you would even begin to claim that Snowden is guilty of murder, when you cannot offer one shred of evidentiary proof that this is the case?!?

And in how many defense industry companies are you invested, that you would really like to see a return of the "cold war" between the US and Russia, looking at your Russia-bashing rhetoric here?!?

There should be a Constitutional Amendment, stating very clearly that every (alleged) Congressional representative must, upon winning office, put their finances in a blind trust, as must the US President.
Winning a seat as a national legislator should not be equivalent to winning the lottery, but unfortunately, that is the case right now.

The United States government has moved to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of five US citizens who say they were victims of a domestic surveillance program, which involves the collection of “suspicious activity reports” on individuals.

According to the ACLU’s filed complaint [PDF], a National Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative (NSI) “encourages state and local law enforcement agencies as well as private actors to collect and report information that has a potential nexus to terrorism in the form of so-called ‘suspicious activity reports [SARs].’”

Fast forward to fall 2014, and the Wall Street Journal has a powerful article about how children in schools systems across the U.S. are being arrested or turned over to police custody for doing things that children have always done since the beginning of time. Things such as wearing too much perfume, sharing a classmates’ chicken nuggets, throwing an eraser or chewing gum.

As a result of our insane societal obsession with authority and disproportionate punishment, the WSJ reports that “nearly one out of every three American adults are on file in the FBI’s master criminal database.”

Citizens in Chicago are costing the city tens of millions by obeying the law, giving credence to the notion that crime really does pay, and is not only profitable but necessary for the state to survive.

First, Americans are the only people in the entire world who effectively suffer under an inescapable, worldwide system of taxation.

For example, if an American and an Italian both moved to Singapore (or any foreign country) and earned income there, the American would still have to file and pay US income taxes. The Italian would have no tax liability to Italy. That’s how it works for citizens of virtually all countries… except American citizens.

Given the Fourth Estate's role as stenographer to power, it is unsurprising that the many articles asking "why" young people are attracted to overseas adventures are all playing into the same "blame Islam" game that results in horrible "jihad" headlines, increased fear, and suspicion of anyone who does not look like the CBC's Peter Whitemansbridge.

Like similar moral panics that have framed particular groups as the new internal enemy, young people both idealist and alienated now fit the focus of terror suspect, especially if they are Muslim and plan to travel overseas to visit relatives, learn Arabic, or just backpack around. Yet despite all the hyped-up chatter, no one has produced any evidence to show a threat exists to Canada and Canadians from the small number who have joined up in battling the Assad regime in Syria or worked with ISIS.

During the last CIS summit in Minsk, an unpleasant incident occurred. The journalists, who could hardly hear what the presidents of Moldova and Russia were talking about, assumed that, at some point, the presidents were going to have a verbal fight with each other. The presidents were talking about the Association of Moldova with the EU and the introduction of Russia's sanctions in response.

The unpleasant incident with the verbal fight, which Moldovan President Timofti started at the summit in Minsk, was not incidental.

Political commentator and freedom advocate Floyd Brown knows what the U.S. government is up to, and he’s calling Washington on it. In this one-on-one interview, find out why the president of the Western Center for Journalism believes Americans are systematically robbed of their savings through a deliberate devaluation of the dollar. In the face of a dollar that will continue to erode in value, Brown explains how gold and silver – the “historic forms of money” – can help to protect our savings. Plus, discover why he believes that Americans are doing a “grave injustice” if they’re depending on the government in retirement.

Fellow musicians are rallying around a subway performer whose arrest in a busy station was captured on video as straphangers jeered the officer. The New York police department says it’s looking into the arrest.

Andrew Kalleen, 30, was performing Friday at the G-train stop in Brooklyn’s hipster Williamsburg neighborhood when an officer told him he must leave the station because he needs a permit to play there. The neighborhood is home to trendy boutiques and cafes patronized by ultrahip residents and tourists who flock there to experience Brooklyn life.

“I’m not going to argue with you,” the officer says calmly.

Kalleen, also speaking evenly, refuses to leave and says he has a right to be there performing, then directs him to the section in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s rules of conduct that say artistic performances and solicitation of donations are allowed.

The accusation by US and other Western diplomats that Iran has been "stonewalling" the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) investigation of alleged past nuclear weapons work has been a familiar theme in mainstream media coverage of Iran's relations with the IAEA for years.

What remains virtually unknown, however, is how a brazen deception by the George W. Bush administration and a key official within the IAEA created the false narrative of Iranian refusal to cooperate with the IAEA and was used to justify harsh international sanctions.

This United Nations Human Rights team has spent the last three days trying to figure out why the shutoffs are necessary.

Leilani Farha and Catarina de Albuquerque led the mission.

"People are living without dignity it's a human rights violation. the city should restore water to those unable to pay," said a representative of the U.N. team.

The mayor's office admits that for years the water department did a poor job collecting money it was owed. Then, when the city filed for bankruptcy last summer under the weight of its own creditors, the department decided to clamp down.

We stand against the passage, in Pennsylvania, of the so-called "Revictimization Relief Act," which affords virtually unlimited discretion to District Attorneys and the state Attorney General to silence prisoner speech, by claiming that such speech causes victims' families "mental anguish." Politicians are claiming a power that if granted to them will be difficult if not impossible for citizens to check.

Veteran Washington journalists and reporters, when they are being honest, will tell you that the current administration is the most political in modern history. Everything is about the proper messaging; optics are much more important, and policy is designed around perpetuating Democratic power.

What they will also tell you is that this White House is so concerned about messaging that it will go to any length to shape it, and that includes pressuring reporters, threatening them with loss of access and, yes, even spying on them (and their parents). It also includes savaging critics.

Recently, an article by Daniel Amerman caught our attention. Titled Is There A “Back Door” Method For The Government To Pay Down The Federal Debt Using Private Savings?, it details the process known as financial repression, where sovereign debts are slowly paid off by syphoning private savings from an unaware populace.

Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is at record levels, according to a new report from the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. That's despite more than a decade of American efforts to knock out the Afghan drug trade—at a cost of roughly $7.6 billion.

Webmaster's Commentary:

In Bo Gritz "A Nation Betrayed", it was revealed that money sent to Vietnam to "fight drugs" was actually spent building a modern highway up to Kuhn Sa's opium plantation to allow large trucks to transport the opium to the airports where CIA's Air America then carried it on the first leg of its journey to the US. I suspect that what that $7 billion was actually spent on is not what you were told it was.

Attitudes toward medical ailments and treatment vary widely, usually based upon the degree of trust in the type of health care practice that a patient believes to be the best healing method. The AMA is an advocacy association that promotes the validity of medical therapy heavily based upon manufactured designer drugs. The establishment corporatist scientists have a tendency to claim a corner on proof. However, they often expound on their accepted view using selective memory. Facts can stand in the way of implementing the master plan when the “so called” humanitarian benefits remain elusive or worse, detrimental.

It’s clear that the gold-hoarding, ISIS-funding, Ebola-creating international bankers are bent on destroying America. Their current flurry of wars and interventions is a desperate attempt to both stave off a deflationary depression and to shut down the giant spotlight increasingly being shown upon them.

At their core they are Nazis, so the black Obama provides the perfect fall guy. There is but one rabbit which Obama can pull out of the hat which will prevent both his and our demise.

He must nationalize the Federal Reserve. And he must do it now.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Obama won't do it. Presidents who stand up to the bankers get shot at, and Obama lacks courage.

All Swedish bank customers will soon be required to prove that they do not owe taxes in the United States according to a new agreement between the countries, and some critics claim it may break EU rules.

The Obama administration has funded a new study by top consulting firm RAND Health that startlingly finds that if taxpayer subsidies are eliminated, Obamacare exchanges will fall into a “death spiral.”

The study comes in the wake of a number of lawsuits which are challenging the Obama administration’s implementation of Obamacare subsidies. Three lawsuits have made it to U.S. Circuit Courts, just one step from the Supreme Court, arguing that the text of the Affordable Care Act allows premium subsidies for state-run exchanges only. (RELATED: Second Court Strikes Down Obamacare Subsidies In Federal Exchanges)

When Netanyahu warns about Iran’s nuclear threat, even those who worry about Tehran’s intentions, respond with a weary shrug

Webmaster's Commentary:

Israel has been crying Iran's nuclear wolf since the 1980s, and it has never happened. Add to that the fact that Iran has not launched a war of aggression against another country in 200 years, and Israel's accusations have never been credible, especially as Israel's own nuclear perfidy becomes known. Netanyahu has made a caricature of himself with his cartoon bomb at the UN, and three gratuitous attacks on Gaza have forever destroyed Israel's PR image as perpetual victim.

The US and UK helped its fascist friends in South Africa develop an ethnic-specific biowarfare program

The goal: To develop ethnic-specific bio-weapons to "limit" the black population.

According to one of the psychopaths who worked on this:

"That was great. That was the most fun I had in my life."

"Another country that had a population problem asked us to work on this." (I'm pretty sure that was one of South Africa's keenest allies Israel that he's referring to.)

From the book by bio-weapons expert Jeanne Guillemin: "The project‘s growth years were from 1982 to 1987, when it developed a range of biological agents (such as those for anthrax, cholera, and the Marburg and Ebola viruses and for botulinum toxin)..."

The voters who put Barack Obama in office expected some big changes. From the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping to Guantanamo Bay to the Patriot Act, candidate Obama was a defender of civil liberties and privacy, promising a dramatically different approach from his predecessor.

But six years into his administration, the Obama version of national security looks almost indistinguishable from the one he inherited. Guantanamo Bay remains open. The NSA has, if anything, become more aggressive in monitoring Americans. Drone strikes have escalated. Most recently it was reported that the same president who won a Nobel Prize in part for promoting nuclear disarmament is spending up to $1 trillion modernizing and revitalizing America’s nuclear weapons.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Very depressing to understand, but this is the reality of government in the United States these days.

The Humboldt County District Attorney's Office filed charges this week against a former Humboldt County Sheriff's Office sergeant — once lauded for saving the life of a young suicidal mother of two — for the alleged sexual assault of two women while he was on duty, according to court documents.

“Mrs. Shim most likely died as a result of her tireless pursuit of truth which is suppressed by media in the West. Mrs. Shim appears to be the victim of a CIA black op, most likely with the cooperation of Turkey who just recently accused her of being a ‘spy’ after she exposed Turkey’s assistance of ISIL,” Martin said.

As an intelligence operation, it must have seemed like pure genius: Recruit a Pakistani doctor to collect blood samples that could identify Osama bin Laden’s family, under cover of an ongoing vaccination program. But as an ethical matter, it was something else.

The CIA’s vaccination gambit put at risk something very precious — the integrity of public health programs in Pakistan and around the globe. It also added to the dangers facing nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in a world that’s increasingly hostile to U.S. aid organizations.

I am going to use this space once again to talk about the despicable un-hiring of Steven Salaita at the University of Illinois (I wrote about the Salaita case and what I called The Incivility of Palestinians, last month as well).

I am going to do this because, despite the fact that the academic boycott of the University of Illinois continues apace (there is even, it seems, the rise of a progressive Jewish-identified contingentchampioning Salaita), facile comparisons of Salaita’s case and circumstances with those of various unsavory others are also proliferating.

These comparisons are so thick-headed, so tin-eared, so ham-fisted, that they nearly defy imagination.

Obamacare “bronze” plan owners may be in for a shock next year. Investors predict the cheapest healthcare offering under the Affordable Care Act could jump nearly 14 percent in price.

In an analysis of expected rates for the biggest 15 cities in the nation, including Washington, D.C., Investor’s Business Daily reported Friday that the cost for the plan could increase by an average of 13.9 percent for 40-year-old non-smokers earning 225 percent of the poverty level.

Webmaster's Commentary:

And now you know why Obama isn't officially announcing the 2015 Obamacare prices until after the election!

I categorically reject the idea that you can’t tell people you “don’t know” … because you’re afraid you’ll scare them.

There is a complete [scientific] literature on risk communications that says people are never frightened if you tell them you don’t know, but “this is what I’m doing to learn”. Or [if you tell them] “this is something, and it might be very scary.”

The literature shows – over and over again – there are 2 things that will turn them to be very concerned … if not scared.

One is if you tell them with certainty “A”, and then you tell them with certainty “B”, and then A and B don’t happen … or they happen in a way you didn’t tell them. Then they wonder about your credibility.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Which is exactly what is happening now. It is not the Ebola that has people scared but the obvious mismanagement by the government!

On October 6, a grand jury in Habersham County, Georgia decided that members of a SWAT team who maimed and disfigured a 19-month-old toddler during a botched no-knock drug raid should not face any criminal charges. It was yet another example of militarized, trigger-happy narcotics officers endangering the public with impunity, which has been the norm in the War on Drugs. SWAT teams, when used appropriately, can save lives: for example, an effective, well-trained SWAT team can actually reduce the number of injuries and fatalities in certain hostage situations. But with American police having become overly militarized in recent years, the use of SWAT teams in non-extreme circumstances has become much too common.

Minutes later, in front of numerous customers and children, armored police officers descended upon the community event, throwing a man to the ground, along with an innocent woman who happened to be standing next to him.

“All of a sudden the SWAT team came in and arrested him and they told me he was a really bad guy,” said Flo Martinez to WTVB. “I’m a single mom of four kids and it scared the heck out of us.”

Troy Wheeler — the “really bad guy” that required a public display of aggression in front of innocent bystanders and children — was taken into custody for parole violation and breaking prohibition laws. Besides a battery conviction 13 years ago, his record is unremarkable and all prohibition-related.

The Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution is crystal clear in meaning.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

FBI Director, James Comey, an Obama appointment, does not give a damn what the Constitution says.

A full and urgent investigation into the disappearance of key child sex abuse files is needed to address public suspicion of a cover-up, the influential Commons home affairs select committee has said.

The MPs’ demand comes from their follow-up inquiry into the response of authorities in Rotherham during which they heard evidence that the files of a council researcher detailing the extent of suffering had been stolen in 2002.

The Commons home affairs committee’s report, published on Saturdaysays this was not the first case wherein there were allegations that files relating to child sex exploitation had disappeared.

It is, of course, true that democratically elected leaders are capable of authoritarian measures. It is, for instance, democratically elected U.S. leaders who imprison people without charges for years, build secret domestic spying systems, and even assert the power to assassinate their own citizens without due process. Elections are no guarantee against tyranny. There are legitimate criticisms to be made of each of these leaders with regard to domestic measures and civic freedoms, as there is for virtually every government on the planet.

Webmaster's Commentary:

This country only observes human rights, freedom, and democracy.... in the absolute, post-Orwellian opposite of what these values are supposed to mean, both at home and abroad.

It doesn't matter, really, who gets elected to national office, because every single candidate has been co-opted by the huge financial rewards of those companies which fund election cycles.

What we have in the US right now is not a democratic republic, but horrific crony capitalism writ large, and all the attending misery it creates.

Here is what happened: workers benefited from rising real incomes during the three quarters of deflation in 2009 – which probably was responsible for firing up moribund consumer spending. But it didn’t last long. In 2011 and 2012, a burst of inflation took it all away again.

It’s only during periods of low inflation or actual deflation that modern American workers get real wage increases. Turns out, the mix of slight inflation and slight deflation is good for workers!

But there is another huge group of people that has been taken to the cleaners: savers. These conservative investors don’t want to lose, in rigged financial markets, 30% or 40% or 50% of what little they have during the last 10 or 20 or 30 years of their lives. Unlike young folks, they have no way of ever re-earning their hard-earned money a second time, so to speak.

A senior official at the U.S. National Security Agency has been cleared to work part-time for a private firm started by former NSA director Keith Alexander, according to exclusive Reuters reporting, raising questions about the blurring of lines between government and business.

It seems the U.S. Forest Service recently published a 700-word guide on how to safely roast marshmallows. (The publication was released in time for Aug.30, which was officially, I kid you not, “National Roasted Marshmallow Day.” Your tax dollars at work.)

This comprehensive article suggests that a 10-foot buffer between children and a fire is a good rule of thumb. Roasting sticks should be at least 30 inches in length. (Do the math for how long a kid’s arm will have to be to roast marshmallows from 10 feet away with a 30-inch stick.)

Chokeholds are dangerous and prohibited by the New York City Police Department. Yet on July 17, Officer Daniel Pantaleo wrapped his arm around the neck of Eric Garner, who had resisted arrest for selling untaxed cigarettes on Staten Island. In a viral video of the encounter, Garner can be heard repeatedly screaming, “I can’t breathe!” before his body goes still.

The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide, and “I can’t breathe!” became a rallying cry at a massive protest against police brutality in Tompkinsville, the neighborhood where Garner -- who’d been caught on multiple occasions selling cigarettes illegally -- was arrested for the last time.

Friday marks three months since the death of Garner, a 43-year-old father of six. For his family, it's another milestone in justice that has been delayed.

The expanding options for communicating over the Internet and the increasing adoption of encryption technologies could leave law enforcement agents “in the dark” and unable to collect evidence against criminals, the Director of the FBI said in a speech on Thursday.

Webmaster's Commentary:

I am going to take it from the above that FBI Director James B. Comey is tacitly admitting that our series of NSA encryption challenges did in fact defeat the NSA cryptographers.

So, Comey is trying to revive an idea from 1995 and declare that any encryption system not authorized for use by the government (meaning not including a back door for them to use) is a "weapon" whose purpose must be assumed to be criminal, and therefore punishable. Better copy off those code snippets in my challenge while you still can!

The new attitude is "Use A Secret Decoder Ring: Go To JAIL!"

The government wants us to trust them that they are only going to spy on criminals, but we already know this is a lie. The FBI and other US Intelligence agencies have been caught stealing personal data for cronies of the President and their own personal profit. The Fourth Amendment says that the government cannot peek into your personal life absent an actual accusation of a crime and given the tsunami of evidence that the government is not complying with its Constitutional limits, We The People have every right to secure our business secrets, photos of our scantily clad partners, my Aunt Mary's Top Secret Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, and everything else from a government that is itself the biggest criminal organization in the country.